Trouble in the Silver Marches

Arcane magic heavy campaign set in the Silver Marches.

A new job

Once the tree was destroyed, the two Supplicants seemed to lapse into a coma. The party was able to struggle their way back to Everlund with the prisoners. Dearborn advised taking them to the Temple of the Morninglord for possible healing, so that is what was done.

Gwen went to see Mistress Hucrele with the news that her daughter was brought back and in the Temple. After thanking Gwen profusely, the head of House Hucrele rushed off to see her daughter, leaving Gwen happy that was over.

Wherein the DM reassures that he will get back to this

Mostly, this is a post to show that this mini-campaign isn’t dead in the water. My time has been taken up with running other games for the whole group, but I have been recently thinking about it again and when I am done my current Mage campaign, I hope to get back to it.

A little background for the future...

Tutlern shuffled his elderly body around his jewelery shop, making sure everything was displayed properly. He shook his mostly bald head slowly at all the empty spaces in his shelves. Low on materials, he had nothing to make to fill in the spaces. He needed the latest wagons from Felbarr with his supplies to get here soon—and it was already two days late.

“Well met, Tutlern,” a sad voice said from the entry to the shop. One look at the trader’s face, and Tutlern knew that the wagons weren’t coming.

“Again? This makes two shipments! I cannot afford to miss many more.”

“How do you think I feel? I have to hire even more guards which drives my prices up and loses me more customers. These bandits hit hard and fast and the next thing we know, we are walking the rest of the way home. These aren’t your normal bandits.” Tutlern nodded in understanding then sighed. After the trader left to try to put another caravan together, Tutlern sighed again and returned to his work area.

His eyes fell on the five tiny sapphires he had bought from that young adventurer and he pursed his lips in thought.

Another mystery

Tunaster Dranik froze when he saw the new building just outside Everlund. He looked around, confused and trying to make sure he was where he thought he was. He squinted to try to see through the illusion, but it didn’t seem to be one. There, plain as day, on the front of the spire, was the circle with seven stars and the mist—Mystra’s symbol. A new Temple to Mystra in Everlund and he had never heard of it.

True, Tunaster spent most of his time wandering, searching for old knowledge and magic to be spread among the faithful servants of Mystra, but he kept in touch, and this Temple would have been big news. Everlund with its own Temple. It kind of made sense, since they now had the adjunct College, but it was sudden, and with no news spreading among the faithful servants?

He went through the gate into the courtyard, hoping to get some answers, but the guards wouldn’t let him inside. A shiver of apprehension wound its way down his back. The guards told him he would have to wait for Lady Arthas, but he could wander the courtyard as he wished.

An hour later, someone named Fembrys stepped up to him, dressed as a Mystran cleric. Tunaster’s nose twitched as Fembrys asked him to accompany him inside the Temple. A sense of foreboding so strong he couldn’t ignore it came over Tunaster and he spun and fled. As he ran through the gate, a few arrows came at him from the walls. A few guards chased him, but he managed to lose them in the traffic of the city and hide in a darkened public house until the danger had passed.

Even as his heart slowed, he was wrestling with the question of what was going on in that Temple.

An abomination locked away

After Gwen made her scrolls, the group decided they could use a healer along with them. Heading to the Temple of Lathander, they asked the priest there if he had anyone he could spare to help them on their quest to find what happened to Mistress Hucrele’s children. The priest quoted a donation amount necessary to procure the services of an underpriest and sent Dearborn Bickell to travel with the party.

The spellthief actually gets to steal spells!

The group decided to rest and heal as best they could, then they headed back to Yusdrayl’s throne room, letting the dragon walk until they were close. Gwen held Calcryx in her hands after casting mage armor on herself. Stopping before the guards, Gwen held out the tribe’s mascot and as Yusdrayl approached to take it, he leapt up and let loose with a burst of cold, taking out one of the guards.

How come you can make-um snowballs in summertime?

The next room contained more goblin guards, alerted by the fight in the previous area. They were just getting ready to come help the javelin throwers when the party came into their room. The fight was short, with Rak doing most of the damage because he was just plain too hard for the guards to get around.

Wherein our heroes learn that goblins can be crafty

The party went out into the crumbling ruin, following their diminutive guide’s lead towards the goblins’ territory. They passed through some empty rooms, and found one with a dry fountain in it. It was ornate, though crumbling like everything else, and the diving dragon it was shaped into was still beautiful. An inscription in Draconic found by Clay and read by Gwen filled the basin with a reddish, acrid liquid. A taste off a dipped finger, and Clay knew it would grant the ability to breathe fire if enough was imbibed.

Across the room was a relief-carved stone door. Clay’s nimble fingers picked the lock and the door opened to reveal five sarcophagi standing on end along the walls of the chamber. A small obsidian shrine stood against the far wall with a single candle still burning on it. Also on the shrine were an amulet and a small glass vial with a thick blue liquid in it. When Clay disturbed the items on the shrine, the doors on the sarcophagi fell down on the floor and 5 skeletons stepped out to reprimand the group for their sacrilege. The fight was short, but quite brutal, and it necessitated Clay using the potion and breathing fire on the skeletons to win. The party needed to rest overnight afterwards. They found a room they could fortify and slept to recover.

In the morning, they started out again towards the goblins. They went through a couple of empty rooms, then came to a closed door. When Clay had Rak open the door, a cowbell clanged loudly, announcing their presence to everyone within sixty feet. Rak flinched and Clay shrugged apologetically. When they finally entered the room, javelins came from behind a low wall through the air at them. The floor was strewn with caltrops, slowing the group’s progress and allowing the goblins to throw several more javelins before Rak could get to them. He and Clay finished them off in a hurry then.

Wherein our heroes discover what adventuring is all about...

DM NoteI am writing a bunch of this several months after it happened, so I may miss some things that happened. I also won’t have as much dialogue typed out because I was able to cut and paste from a campaign journal I was typing up on my computer for the first post, but not any others.

The heroes skirted around a hidden pit in the dimly lit courtyard, then stepped into a dark circular room. Rak took out one of his sunrods and tapped it on the wall to light the room. There were two obvious exits from the room. The party checked the first one and found a long narrow room which held another large rat. This one managed to take a bite out of Clay , and the wound didn’t take long to turn a nasty looking red color. The only other door out of there was locked well beyond Clay’s ability to open it, so the group decided to try the other door.

A hallway stretched into the darkness and the soft scraping sound came faintly to their ears. Clay moved down the hallway, followed by Rak and Gwen side by side. After several paces, there were two doors across from each other in the hall. The one on the right was empty, but the one on the left contained a large keg. Rak shook it and heard a a liquid sloshing inside.

“Could be water to wash your wound with,” he suggested to Clay. With a shrug, they pulled the bung out of the top, and were immediately set upon by a tiny winged creature with slick skin the color of a deep lake. It belched out a spray of some caustic liquid at Rak, then set on Clay with its sharp claws. Rak’s long sword flashed out, distracting it from Clay, who stabbed it hard with his short sword. A hard bash with Rak’s shield sent the small monstrosity flying away before it could be dispatched. The adventurers, however, found a small stash of small sapphires. Already they were getting rich!

In the next room, they stumbled across a small form whining piteously under some blankets. When prodded, the little reptilian creature jumped up and begged for its life in a high-pitched, gravelly voice. Then it realized that these mighty heroes could help it get its tribe’s mascot, Calcryx, back from the goblins further in the citadel. Meepo took them to see his leader, Yusdrayl, to work out the deal to help. The group realized that a key Yusdrayl had on a hook behind her might be the key to the room they couldn’t open before, so they bargained for it, and also bought a coupe of herbalist potions that would help against poison. With a bargain in place, the three adventurers, with the hapless Meepo, went to retrieve the mascot.